Locked inside your heart-shaped box
Feb. 11th, 2011 07:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kkscatnip
Dear Single Women of NYC: It's Not Them, It's You is a completely awesome article. I've read it twice over, and I agree with it completely. It is applicable to women everywhere, so don't think it doesn't apply to you if you don't live in NYC.
The article makes three points that really made me sit up and pay attention, though. The first is that if women want equality (and I think most women do) they can't skip out on taking half of the blame when relationships fall apart. They can't say things like "it was him, not you" or "men are jerks" or whatever else, if they want to follow the belief that men and women are truly equal, because that's foisting off the responsibility and doing that is no help at all with the equality issue.
The second point the article makes is that "settling" is not a bad thing. Mr Right may or may not exist, and Mr Good Enough is right in front of you, so if you want a marriage or a child or whatever else badly enough there's no reason not to settle. A lot of people have a visceral reaction to the idea of settling down, and I think that is kind of silly because there's no shame in making a decision.
Which leads us into the third point: if you're going to enter into a long-term relationship, you need to know what you want from it. Your goal is that 2.5 kids and a dog? Fine, go for it. Your goal is to have someone to call your husband/wife? Also fine.
Going into relationships not having a goal is-- well, it's destructive to the relationship, for one. You're undermining it from the start, not knowing what you want, because if you don't know what you want it's impossible for the other person to provide that.
This is a lesson that I'm only just recently learning! I feel like I should have thought of it sooner, but honestly-- it's a new realization, and this recent relationship with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tensergorn is the only one I've entered into knowing exactly what I want.
I want a best friend that I can share everything, everything with; I want someone who tries to understand me; I want someone who makes communication a priority; above all, I want someone who I can love and who loves me, and have both of us accept that love/caring. Eventually, I want kids, but that's a less pressing desire than all the rest. I don't have to do it now, now, now, but the rest-- they're very important things to me.
I seem to recall having a discussion with her at some point-- possibly before we started dating, when we were still at the flirting heavily stage-- about some aspects of these things, and thinking that the results were satisfactory.
I'm not quite sure where else I'm going with this, but I mostly just wanted to link the article and say, look, look! Someone who's gotten it right!
I really hope the article gets more exposure than it has so far; it deserves it.
The article makes three points that really made me sit up and pay attention, though. The first is that if women want equality (and I think most women do) they can't skip out on taking half of the blame when relationships fall apart. They can't say things like "it was him, not you" or "men are jerks" or whatever else, if they want to follow the belief that men and women are truly equal, because that's foisting off the responsibility and doing that is no help at all with the equality issue.
The second point the article makes is that "settling" is not a bad thing. Mr Right may or may not exist, and Mr Good Enough is right in front of you, so if you want a marriage or a child or whatever else badly enough there's no reason not to settle. A lot of people have a visceral reaction to the idea of settling down, and I think that is kind of silly because there's no shame in making a decision.
Which leads us into the third point: if you're going to enter into a long-term relationship, you need to know what you want from it. Your goal is that 2.5 kids and a dog? Fine, go for it. Your goal is to have someone to call your husband/wife? Also fine.
Going into relationships not having a goal is-- well, it's destructive to the relationship, for one. You're undermining it from the start, not knowing what you want, because if you don't know what you want it's impossible for the other person to provide that.
This is a lesson that I'm only just recently learning! I feel like I should have thought of it sooner, but honestly-- it's a new realization, and this recent relationship with
tensergorn is the only one I've entered into knowing exactly what I want. I want a best friend that I can share everything, everything with; I want someone who tries to understand me; I want someone who makes communication a priority; above all, I want someone who I can love and who loves me, and have both of us accept that love/caring. Eventually, I want kids, but that's a less pressing desire than all the rest. I don't have to do it now, now, now, but the rest-- they're very important things to me.
I seem to recall having a discussion with her at some point-- possibly before we started dating, when we were still at the flirting heavily stage-- about some aspects of these things, and thinking that the results were satisfactory.
I'm not quite sure where else I'm going with this, but I mostly just wanted to link the article and say, look, look! Someone who's gotten it right!
I really hope the article gets more exposure than it has so far; it deserves it.
